By Adam Cleary
CARDIFF MET staged an incredible second half comeback to take the spoils 39-20 at the Sport Park, despite trailing 20-7 at half-time.
USW made a dream start and were 5-0 up in the second minute when the impressive Georgia Evans crossed in the corner after some great work from the USW outside backs created an overlap.
USW continued to dominate the opening facets of the game and doubled their lead when Evans off-loaded to fly half Megan Webb who crashed over from close range.
Cardiff Met began to show what they could do and a rare venture into the USW 22 in the first half brought success when No.8 Natalia-Mia Roach muscled her way over the line and a successful conversion from Ffion Jones brought the score to 10-7.
This sprung USW back into life with two further tries scored before the half time break.
Scrum half Megan Tate made it 15-7 with her dummy fooling the Met defence and enabling her to dot down before USW wrapped up their fourth try of the half right on the stroke of half time. This time Evans broke from her own half before off-loading to fly-half Webb who crossed under the posts.
The second half started in disastrous fashion for USW who were reduced to 13 players because of a double sin-binning. This enabled Met to capitalise, with captain Harriet Walker crossing to close the deficit to just eight points.
That deficit was soon further shortened when the impressive Harriet Nicholas made it 20-17 when she finished a well worked overlap, making it a three-point game.
And Met were soon in the lead for the first time when winger Abby Lloyd snuck in at the corner to put Met 22-20 in front.
It was one-way traffic from here on in and Met took the game away from USW thanks to an outstanding try from full-back Nicholas who broke from her own 22, avoiding USW defenders and crossing under the posts to take the score to 20-29.
It was soon 20-34 when winger Lloyd grabbed her brace and in the dying moments of the game and Nicholas grabbed a deserved hat-trick with another classy individual score.
It was a disappointing way for USW to finish their home games for this campaign, but head coach Mark Hutton will take positives from his side’s first half performance as they travel to Bath next.